Gardiner and Daggett met, face to face, on the carcase of the whale.  Each struck his lance into the blubber, steadying himself by its handle; and each eyed the other in a way that betokened feelings awakened to a keen desire to defend his rights.  It is a fault of American character,—­a fruit of the institutions, beyond a doubt,—­that renders men unusually indisposed to give up.  This stubbornness of temperament, that so many mistake for a love of liberty and independence, is productive of much good, when the parties happen to be right, and of quite as much evil, when they happen to be wrong.  It is ever the wisest, as, indeed, it is the noblest course, to defer to that which is just, with a perfect reliance on its being the course pointed out by the finger of infallible wisdom and truth.  He who does this, need feel no concern for his dignity, or for his success; being certain that it is intended that right shall prevail in the end, as prevail it will and does.  But both our shipmasters were too much excited to feel the force of these truths; and there they stood, sternly regarding each other, as if it were their purpose to commence a new struggle for the possession of the leviathan of the deep.

“Captain Daggett,” said Roswell, sharply, “you are too old a whaler not to know whaling law.  My irons were first in this fish; I never have been loose from it, since it was first struck, and my lance killed it.  Under such circumstances, sir, I am surprised that any man, who knows the usages among whalers, should have stuck by the creature as you have done.”

“It’s in my natur’, Gar’ner,” was the answer.  “I stuck by you when you was dismasted under Hatteras, and I stick by everything that I undertake.  This is what I call Vineyard natur’; and I’m not about to discredit my native country.”

“This is idle talk,” returned Roswell, casting a severe glance at the men in the Vineyard boat, among whom a common smile arose, as if they highly approved of the reply of their own officer.  “You very well know that Vineyard law cannot settle such a question, but American law.  Were you man enough to take this whale from me, as I trust you are not, on our return home you could be and would be made to pay smartly for the act.  Uncle Sam has a long arm, with which he sometimes reaches round the whole earth.  Before you proceed any further in this matter, it may be well to remember that.”

Daggett reflected; and it is probable that, as he cooled off from the excitement created by his late exertions, he fully recognised the justice of the other’s remarks, and the injustice of his own claims.  Still, it seemed to him un-American, un-Vineyard, if the reader please, to “give up;” and he clung to his error with as much pertinacity as if he had been right.

“If you are fast, I am fast, too.  I’m not so certain of your law.  When a man puts an iron into a whale, commonly it is his fish, if he can get him, and kill him.  But there is a law above all whalers’ law, and that is the law of Divine Providence.  Providence has fastened us to this crittur’, as if on purpose to give us a right in it; and I’m by no means so sure States’ law won’t uphold that doctrine.  Then, I lost my own whale by means of this, and am entitled to some compensation for such a loss.”